Tuesday, June 28, 2011 3:23:29 PMI remember learning about Spiral galaxies, and one of the particulars among them being that they're more conducive to the sustainability/incubation of life. It was from that moment forward that I began to wonder whether intelligent life elsewhere might be aware of this, and if so, whether that could serve to limit their search to a more effective end?

Sounds likely, but I was limiting it to aliens already within this galaxy. If you're going with the universe, then the chances of finding us are entire orders of magnitude *less*, even if they can assess which galaxies are more likely to contain life.

Your idea could work on a galactic scale, though. The centre of this galaxy is probably less likely to contains places conducive to life, so it might be better to start a search in the arms.

I think it's still implausible that they would have surveyed Earth within human existence, let alone civilisation.

Tuesday, June 28, 2011 4:22:58 AMSo Angillion - if you're still here - aside from all your eloquent illustration of the practical unlikelihood of alien visitation here on Earth (and withstanding what you consider to be a rather peculiar way of making contact, even granted the best case scenario) have you considered the possibility of their scouting efforts being based on galaxy 'design?'

I remember learning about Spiral galaxies, and one of the particulars among them being that they're more conducive to the sustainability/incubation of life. It was from that moment forward that I began to wonder whether intelligent life elsewhere might be aware of this, and if so, whether that could serve to limit their search to a more effective end?

Tuesday, June 28, 2011 3:48:39 AMFrom The Telegraph's website: "A separate video posted by the same user, alymc01, is believed to have been shot from inside the offices of a visual effects company called The Mill. The firm creates special effects for the film industry." Next!

Tuesday, June 28, 2011 12:04:02 AMLet me tell you guys something. About three years ago my Dad drove me to CA at night, it was probably around midnight. We were passing Calexico and out of no where there were red lights- at least a dozen of them, bright, and then fading out into the darkness. I made my Dad stop and we got out to take a better look. Now standing still, I could see that they were flashing bright, fading and then coming back as bright. I was scared, but after a while, I felt this calming effect come over me. One of the lights actually started towards me, and my Dad grabbed my sholder and told me that I'm moving moving in with your Auntie and Uncle in Bel-Air.

Tuesday, June 28, 2011 12:02:14 AMWhat about NASA? There are astronauts, scientists and physicists that have seen and filmed objects while in space that NASA has classified as UFOs.

UFOs != alien spaceships. There are no sightings or films of anything that is clearly an artificial craft, let alone one of alien origin. There are known things that can cause moving or apparently moving lights. There may well be other things that cause them that aren't currently known. There are secret craft made by humans that will not be officially acknowledged, so any chance sightings of lights from them will go down as a UFO even from the few people who know what they are.

Bottom line is that these things are UNidentified. We don't know what they are.

Monday, June 27, 2011 11:55:29 PMyeah but getting to our planet, no matter how smart they are, i find that bit the unlikely part. can't go faster than light-speed, newtons law and all that

More Einstein than Newton. Newtonian physics is an approximation that holds up extremely well at speeds under a few dozen million mph, but if you're looking at a significant fraction of the speed of light you have to switch to relativity and it was mainly Einstein who laid the foundations for that part of physics.

Monday, June 27, 2011 11:51:36 PMWhy do people find it so hard to believe in UFO's I mean you really think we are the only species in the whole universe and that we are the smartest? I mean come on it will happen eventually.

Why not read the thread? Or just my post from Monday, June 27, 2011 2:38:00 PM, on the preceeding page.

Nobody is arguing that we definitely are the only species in the universe.

Nobody is even arguing that we are definitely the only intelligent species in this galaxy.

Nobody is arguing that there aren't any UFOs.

What people are arguing is this:

i) A UFO is just an unidentified thing that is or appears to be flying. That doesn't mean it's an alien spaceship.

ii) We have no evidence of life anywhere else, let alone people with technology so vastly ahead of ours that they can travel between stars. So why just assume they *must* exist?